Friday the 13th Thirteenth 13th Thirteenth
he couldnt decide which way he liked it best
13th Thirteenth
thirteenth 13th
the long even line of thirteenth appealed to him like a straight razor
or stiletto with teeth
the roundness of 13th of its 3
bulbs mons pubis breasts or a fanny gripped tightly in one hand the other free to grip another fixation
fastenation
fastenation upset others
unhinged their pet peeves
Cant you just write fascination
I cant Its like not watching an attractive woman walking
by Why wouldnt I watch her
obliquely
the thirteenth rarely exhibited for
him his physical being any downsides
though his old man while a young
man had an ungainly penchant for ending up in a hospital
then enduring lengthy stays
to his young waondering mind
it seemed that this slew of hospitalizations
coincided with a raft of major projects his old man laid out for the pair of
them to complete
preparing the earth for their
large vegetable gardens
thatching their front and back lawns
during the Autumn and Spring
not
as visually stimulating or as abundant as when raking up their maple and black walnut
leaves and twigs
scrapping repairing then repainting
the white picket fence that divvied up their property from their neighbors to either
side of them
particularly that year they annexed two feet of their property back from their
cop neighbor who had built a fence violating
the property line and kept it from the
family who owned their house prior
apparently it was the rave of the
neighborhood a small ten year old going
toe-to-toe with cop in full uniform badge cap and sidearm the evening following the day he had finished
dismantling nearly forty feet of fence when
days prior he begun bringing it down under the aegis . . .
-- Did
you really just say aegis to me
-- I did
-- What ten year old thats what you are right
ten uses the word aegis
-- Youre looking at him Mr Betel
he
for the most part was able to remain respectful of his elders though it laid the groundwork and spurred his
deepseated resentment of anything pertaining to Authority or physically was bigger
than he
. . . under the aegis
of replacing rotted pickets rails and posts
he ran a stringline according to County
assessment of their propertyline dug
postholes set and squared the posts and anchored
them with concrete mixed in a wheelbarrow
he just finished screwing in the
complete upper rail when Mr Betel came flying down the stairs of his backporch
enraged
-- You sneaky sonofabitch
he had all along
a second copy from the Assessors Office tucked in his back pocket that his
father had attained before he went into the hospital unexpectedly
but he couldnt bring himself to
follow the letter of the Law his father had laid out from the hospital through
his mother
not to argue with Mr Betel simply
and respectfully hand him the document
hed
know what it was
he
was an officer of the Law
then
remove himself from the situation
if push came to shove
somehow his old
man left that out of his instructions
if push came
to shove
he heard over the kitchen table
at dinner more times than he could remember the irritation in his old mans
voice whenever by the slimmest of
possibilities or wildness of gropes to
wend in his outrage that the Settlemeyers hadnt coopted their Own property while
they lived there
because
the neighbor was a policeman
and who wanted that trouble
Trouble What trouble
No trouble at all
or when plans had been set to
paint their two-storey wood frame house
side by side by
side by side
scrape and use propane flame to boil resistant paint
sand
apply primer
sand
rough spots and re-prime
apply
undercoat
apply
finish coat
not to mention the dropcloths to
gather the scrapings and sanding and keep paint from the sidewalks and plants
or the
ladderwork
or
putting up and moving and taking down the scaffolding
not to mention the entire Summer
that it took
yet somewhere in all of that
among all those times
to his young waondering mind
he hoped his old man pulled an
occasional quick one on him
sprung himself from the hospital did some carousing or maybe spirited his mother away on a weekend
trip when their grandmother came to stay with him and his seven younger siblings
hospital rules then forbade
children from entering its confines he didnt
see his old man once he went in until he returned home and finished out his convalescence
but through the sweat in his eyes
and the exhaustion in his body at night through
the obscene promise of more work to do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
through all of it
he liked imagining one of them was out having
a ball for both of them
thirteenth like a straight razor or stiletto
with teeth
1250, Friday,
13 2. 2015 1354, Sunday,
15 2. 15
